\chapter[Book 3][Book 3]{Book 3}
\markright{PLATO'S REPUBLIC}

BOOK III

%Socrates - ADEIMANTUS 

Such then, I said, are our principles of theology---some tales are
to be told, and others are not to be told to our disciples from their
youth upwards, if we mean them to honor the gods and their parents,
and to value friendship with one another. 

Yes; and I think that our principles are right, he said.

But if they are to be courageous, must they not learn other lessons
besides these, and lessons of such a kind as will take away the fear
of death? Can any man be courageous who has the fear of death in him?

Certainly not, he said. 

And can he be fearless of death, or will he choose death in battle
rather than defeat and slavery, who believes the world below to be
real and terrible? 

Impossible.

Then we must assume a control over the narrators of this class of
tales as well as over the others, and beg them not simply to revile,
but rather to commend the world below, intimating to them that their
descriptions are untrue, and will do harm to our future warriors. 

That will be our duty, he said.

Then, I said, we shall have to obliterate many obnoxious passages,
beginning with the verses, 

\begin{quote}
``I would rather be a serf on the land of a poor and portionless man
than rule over all the dead who have come to nought.''
\end{quote}

We must also expunge the verse, which tells us how Pluto feared, 

\begin{quote}
``Lest the mansions grim and squalid which the gods abhor should be
seen both of mortals and immortals.''
\end{quote}

And again:--- 

\begin{quote}
``O heavens! verily in the house of Hades there is soul and ghostly
form but no mind at all!''
\end{quote}

Again of Tiresias:--- 

\begin{quote}
``[To him even after death did Persephone grant mind,] that he alone
should be wise; but the other souls are flitting shades.''
\end{quote}

Again:---

\begin{quote}
``The soul flying from the limbs had gone to Hades, lamenting her fate,
leaving manhood and youth.''
\end{quote}

Again:--- 

\begin{quote}
``And the soul, with shrilling cry, passed like smoke beneath the earth.''
\end{quote}

And,--- 

\begin{quote}
``As bats in hollow of mystic cavern, whenever any of them has dropped
out of the string and falls from the rock, fly shrilling and cling
to one another, so did they with shrilling cry hold together as they
moved.''
\end{quote}

And we must beg Homer and the other poets not to be angry if we
strike out these and similar passages, not because they are unpoetical,
or unattractive to the popular ear, but because the greater the poetical
charm of them, the less are they meet for the ears of boys and men
who are meant to be free, and who should fear slavery more than death.

Undoubtedly. 

Also we shall have to reject all the terrible and appalling names
describe the world below---Cocytus and Styx, ghosts under the earth,
and sapless shades, and any similar words of which the very mention
causes a shudder to pass through the inmost soul of him who hears
them. I do not say that these horrible stories may not have a use
of some kind; but there is a danger that the nerves of our guardians
may be rendered too excitable and effeminate by them. 

There is a real danger, he said.

Then we must have no more of them. 

True. 

Another and a nobler strain must be composed and sung by us.

Clearly. 

And shall we proceed to get rid of the weepings and wailings of famous
men? 

They will go with the rest. 

But shall we be right in getting rid of them? Reflect: our principle
is that the good man will not consider death terrible to any other
good man who is his comrade. 

Yes; that is our principle. 

And therefore he will not sorrow for his departed friend as though
he had suffered anything terrible? 

He will not. 

Such an one, as we further maintain, is sufficient for himself and
his own happiness, and therefore is least in need of other men.

True, he said. 

And for this reason the loss of a son or brother, or the deprivation
of fortune, is to him of all men least terrible. 

Assuredly. 

And therefore he will be least likely to lament, and will bear with
the greatest equanimity any misfortune of this sort which may befall
him. 

Yes, he will feel such a misfortune far less than another.

Then we shall be right in getting rid of the lamentations of famous
men, and making them over to women (and not even to women who are
good for anything), or to men of a baser sort, that those who are
being educated by us to be the defenders of their country may scorn
to do the like. 

That will be very right. 

Then we will once more entreat Homer and the other poets not to depict
Achilles, who is the son of a goddess, first lying on his side, then
on his back, and then on his face; then starting up and sailing in
a frenzy along the shores of the barren sea; now taking the sooty
ashes in both his hands and pouring them over his head, or weeping
and wailing in the various modes which Homer has delineated. Nor should
he describe Priam the kinsman of the gods as praying and beseeching,

\begin{quote}
Rolling in the dirt, calling each man loudly by his name.''
\end{quote}

Still more earnestly will we beg of him at all events not to introduce
the gods lamenting and saying, 

\begin{quote}
``Alas! my misery! Alas! that I bore the harvest to my sorrow.''
\end{quote}

But if he must introduce the gods, at any rate let him not dare so
completely to misrepresent the greatest of the gods, as to make him say---

\begin{quote}
``O heavens! with my eyes verily I behold a dear friend of mine chased
round and round the city, and my heart is sorrowful.''
\end{quote}

Or again:---

\begin{quote}
``Woe is me that I am fated to have Sarpedon, dearest of men to me,
subdued at the hands of Patroclus the son of Menoetius.''
\end{quote}

For if, my sweet Adeimantus, our youth seriously listen to such unworthy
representations of the gods, instead of laughing at them as they ought,
hardly will any of them deem that he himself, being but a man, can be
dishonored by similar actions; neither will he rebuke any inclination
which may arise in his mind to say and do the like. And instead of having
any shame or self-control, he will be always whining and lamenting on
slight occasions. 

Yes, he said, that is most true. 

Yes, I replied; but that surely is what ought not to be, as the argument
has just proved to us; and by that proof we must abide until it is
disproved by a better. 

It ought not to be. 

Neither ought our guardians to be given to laughter. For a fit of
laughter which has been indulged to excess almost always produces
a violent reaction. 

So I believe. 

Then persons of worth, even if only mortal men, must not be represented
as overcome by laughter, and still less must such a representation
of the gods be allowed. 

Still less of the gods, as you say, he replied. 

Then we shall not suffer such an expression to be used about the gods
as that of Homer when he describes how 

\begin{quote}
``Inextinguishable laughter arose among the blessed gods, when they
saw Hephaestus bustling about the mansion.''
\end{quote}

On your views, we must not admit them. 

On my views, if you like to father them on me; that we must not admit
them is certain. 

Again, truth should be highly valued; if, as we were saying, a lie
is useless to the gods, and useful only as a medicine to men, then
the use of such medicines should be restricted to physicians; private
individuals have no business with them. 

Clearly not, he said. 

Then if any one at all is to have the privilege of lying, the rulers
of the State should be the persons; and they, in their dealings either
with enemies or with their own citizens, may be allowed to lie for
the public good. But nobody else should meddle with anything of the
kind; and although the rulers have this privilege, for a private man
to lie to them in return is to be deemed a more heinous fault than
for the patient or the pupil of a gymnasium not to speak the truth
about his own bodily illnesses to the physician or to the trainer,
or for a sailor not to tell the captain what is happening about the
ship and the rest of the crew, and how things are going with himself
or his fellow sailors. 

Most true, he said. 

If, then, the ruler catches anybody beside himself lying in the State,

\begin{quote}
``Any of the craftsmen, whether he be priest or physician or carpenter.''
\end{quote}

he will punish him for introducing a practice which is equally subversive
and destructive of ship or State. 

Most certainly, he said, if our idea of the State is ever carried
out. 

In the next place our youth must be temperate? 

Certainly. 

Are not the chief elements of temperance, speaking generally, obedience
to commanders and self-control in sensual pleasures? 

True. 

Then we shall approve such language as that of Diomede in Homer,

\begin{quote}
``Friend, sit still and obey my word,''
\end{quote}

and the verses which follow,

\begin{quote}
``The Greeks marched breathing prowess,
...in silent awe of their leaders,''
\end{quote}

and other sentiments of the same kind. 

We shall. 
What of this line, 

\begin{quote}
``O heavy with wine, who hast the eyes of a dog and the heart of a stag,''
\end{quote}

and of the words which follow? Would you say that these, or any similar
impertinences which private individuals are supposed to address to
their rulers, whether in verse or prose, are well or ill spoken?

They are ill spoken. 

They may very possibly afford some amusement, but they do not conduce
to temperance. And therefore they are likely to do harm to our young
men---you would agree with me there? 

Yes. 

And then, again, to make the wisest of men say that nothing in his
opinion is more glorious than 

\begin{quote}
``When the tables are full of bread and meat, and the cupbearer carries
round wine which he draws from the bowl and pours into the cups;''
\end{quote}

is it fit or conducive to temperance for a young man to hear such words?
Or the verse 

\begin{quote}
``The saddest of fates is to die and meet destiny from hunger?''
\end{quote}

What would you say again to the tale of Zeus, who, while other gods and
men were asleep and he the only person awake, lay devising plans,
but forgot them all in a moment through his lust, and was so completely
overcome at the sight of Here that he would not even go into the hut,
but wanted to lie with her on the ground, declaring that he had never
been in such a state of rapture before, even when they first met one
another 

\begin{quote}
``Without the knowledge of their parents;''
\end{quote}

or that other tale of how Hephaestus, because of similar goings on,
cast a chain around Ares and Aphrodite? 

Indeed, he said, I am strongly of opinion that they ought not to hear
that sort of thing. 

But any deeds of endurance which are done or told by famous men, these
they ought to see and hear; as, for example, what is said in the verses,

\begin{quote}
``He smote his breast, and thus reproached his heart,
Endure, my heart; far worse hast thou endured!''
\end{quote}

Certainly, he said. 

In the next place, we must not let them be receivers of gifts or lovers
of money. 

Certainly not. 

Neither must we sing to them of 

\begin{quote}
``Gifts persuading gods, and persuading reverend kings.''
\end{quote}

Neither is Phoenix, the tutor of Achilles, to be approved or deemed
to have given his pupil good counsel when he told him that he should
take the gifts of the Greeks and assist them; but that without a gift
he should not lay aside his anger. Neither will we believe or acknowledge
Achilles himself to have been such a lover of money that he took
Agamemnon's gifts, or that when he had received payment he restored the
dead body of Hector, but that without payment he was unwilling to do so.

Undoubtedly, he said, these are not sentiments which can be approved.
Loving Homer as I do, I hardly like to say that in attributing these
feelings to Achilles, or in believing that they are truly attributed
to him, he is guilty of downright impiety. As little can I believe the
narrative of his insolence to Apollo, where he says, 

\begin{quote}
``Thou hast wronged me, O far-darter, most abominable of deities.
Verily I would be even with thee, if I had only the power,''
\end{quote}

or his insubordination to the river-god, on whose divinity he is ready
to lay hands; or his offering to the dead Patroclus of his own hair,
which had been previously dedicated to the other river-god Spercheius,
and that he actually performed this vow; or that he dragged Hector round
the tomb of Patroclus, and slaughtered the captives at the pyre; of all
this I cannot believe that he was guilty, any more than I can allow our
citizens to believe that he, the wise Cheiron's pupil, the son of a
goddess and of Peleus who was the gentlest of men and third in descent
from Zeus, was so disordered in his wits as to be at one time the slave
of two seemingly inconsistent passions, meanness, not untainted by avarice,
combined with overweening contempt of gods and men. 

You are quite right, he replied. 

And let us equally refuse to believe, or allow to be repeated, the
tale of Theseus son of Poseidon, or of Peirithous son of Zeus, going
forth as they did to perpetrate a horrid rape; or of any other hero
or son of a god daring to do such impious and dreadful things as they
falsely ascribe to them in our day: and let us further compel the
poets to declare either that these acts were not done by them, or
that they were not the sons of gods;---both in the same breath they
shall not be permitted to affirm. We will not have them trying to
persuade our youth that the gods are the authors of evil, and that
heroes are no better than men---sentiments which, as we were saying,
are neither pious nor true, for we have already proved that evil cannot
come from the gods. 

Assuredly not. 

And further they are likely to have a bad effect on those who hear
them; for everybody will begin to excuse his own vices when he is
convinced that similar wickednesses are always being perpetrated by--- 

\begin{quote}
``The kindred of the gods, the relatives of Zeus, whose ancestral altar,
the altar of Zeus, is aloft in air on the peak of Ida,''
\end{quote}

and who have

\begin{quote}
``the blood of deities yet flowing in their veins.''
\end{quote}

And therefore let us put an end to such tales, lest they engender
laxity of morals among the young. 

By all means, he replied. 

But now that we are determining what classes of subjects are or are
not to be spoken of, let us see whether any have been omitted by us.
The manner in which gods and demigods and heroes and the world below
should be treated has been already laid down. 

Very true. 

And what shall we say about men? That is clearly the remaining portion
of our subject. 

Clearly so. 

But we are not in a condition to answer this question at present,
my friend. 

Why not? 

Because, if I am not mistaken, we shall have to say that about men
poets and story-tellers are guilty of making the gravest misstatements
when they tell us that wicked men are often happy, and the good miserable;
and that injustice is profitable when undetected, but that justice
is a man's own loss and another's gain---these things we shall forbid
them to utter, and command them to sing and say the opposite.

To be sure we shall, he replied. 

But if you admit that I am right in this, then I shall maintain that
you have implied the principle for which we have been all along contending.

I grant the truth of your inference. 

That such things are or are not to be said about men is a question
which we can not determine until we have discovered what justice is,
and how naturally advantageous to the possessor, whether he seems
to be just or not. 

Most true, he said. 

Enough of the subjects of poetry: let us now speak of the style; and
when this has been considered, both matter and manner will have been
completely treated. 

I do not understand what you mean, said Adeimantus. 

Then I must make you understand; and perhaps I may be more intelligible
if I put the matter in this way. You are aware, I suppose, that all
mythology and poetry is a narration of events, either past, present,
or to come? 

Certainly, he replied. 

And narration may be either simple narration, or imitation, or a union
of the two? 

That again, he said, I do not quite understand. 

I fear that I must be a ridiculous teacher when I have so much difficulty
in making myself apprehended. Like a bad speaker, therefore, I will
not take the whole of the subject, but will break a piece off in illustration
of my meaning. You know the first lines of the Iliad, in which the
poet says that Chryses prayed Agamemnon to release his daughter, and
that Agamemnon flew into a passion with him; whereupon Chryses, failing
of his object, invoked the anger of the God against the Achaeans.
Now as far as these lines, 

\begin{quote}
``And he prayed all the Greeks, but especially the two sons of Atreus,
the chiefs of the people,''
\end{quote}

the poet is speaking in his own person; he never leads us to suppose that
he is any one else. But in what follows he takes the person of Chryses,
and then he does all that he can to make us believe that the speaker is not
Homer, but the aged priest himself. And in this double form he has cast the
entire narrative of the events which occurred at Troy and in Ithaca and
throughout the Odyssey. 

Yes. 

And a narrative it remains both in the speeches which the poet recites
from time to time and in the intermediate passages? 

Quite true. 

But when the poet speaks in the person of another, may we not say
that he assimilates his style to that of the person who, as he informs
you, is going to speak? 

Certainly. 

And this assimilation of himself to another, either by the use of
voice or gesture, is the imitation of the person whose character he
assumes? 

Of course. 

Then in this case the narrative of the poet may be said to proceed
by way of imitation? 

Very true. 

Or, if the poet everywhere appears and never conceals himself, then
again the imitation is dropped, and his poetry becomes simple narration.
However, in order that I may make my meaning quite clear, and that
you may no more say, ``I don't understand,'' I will show how the change
might be effected. If Homer had said, ``The priest came, having his
daughter's ransom in his hands, supplicating the Achaeans, and above
all the kings;'' and then if, instead of speaking in the person of
Chryses, he had continued in his own person, the words would have
been, not imitation, but simple narration. The passage would have
run as follows (I am no poet, and therefore I drop the metre), ``The
priest came and prayed the gods on behalf of the Greeks that they
might capture Troy and return safely home, but begged that they would
give him back his daughter, and take the ransom which he brought,
and respect the God. Thus he spoke, and the other Greeks revered the
priest and assented. But Agamemnon was wroth, and bade him depart
and not come again, lest the staff and chaplets of the God should
be of no avail to him---the daughter of Chryses should not be released,
he said--she should grow old with him in Argos. And then he told
him to go away and not to provoke him, if he intended to get home
unscathed. And the old man went away in fear and silence, and, when
he had left the camp, he called upon Apollo by his many names, reminding
him of everything which he had done pleasing to him, whether in building
his temples, or in offering sacrifice, and praying that his good deeds
might be returned to him, and that the Achaeans might expiate his
tears by the arrows of the god,''---and so on. In this way the whole
becomes simple narrative. 

I understand, he said. 

Or you may suppose the opposite case---that the intermediate passages
are omitted, and the dialogue only left. 

That also, he said, I understand; you mean, for example, as in tragedy.

You have conceived my meaning perfectly; and if I mistake not, what
you failed to apprehend before is now made clear to you, that poetry
and mythology are, in some cases, wholly imitative---instances of
this are supplied by tragedy and comedy; there is likewise the opposite
style, in which the poet is the only speaker---of this the dithyramb
affords the best example; and the combination of both is found in
epic, and in several other styles of poetry. Do I take you with me?

Yes, he said; I see now what you meant. 

I will ask you to remember also what I began by saying, that we had
done with the subject and might proceed to the style. 

Yes, I remember. 

In saying this, I intended to imply that we must come to an understanding
about the mimetic art,---whether the poets, in narrating their stories,
are to be allowed by us to imitate, and if so, whether in whole or
in part, and if the latter, in what parts; or should all imitation
be prohibited? 

You mean, I suspect, to ask whether tragedy and comedy shall be admitted
into our State? 

Yes, I said; but there may be more than this in question: I really
do not know as yet, but whither the argument may blow, thither we
go. 

And go we will, he said. 

Then, Adeimantus, let me ask you whether our guardians ought to be
imitators; or rather, has not this question been decided by the rule
already laid down that one man can only do one thing well, and not
many; and that if he attempt many, he will altogether fail of gaining
much reputation in any? 

Certainly. 

And this is equally true of imitation; no one man can imitate many
things as well as he would imitate a single one? 

He can not. 

Then the same person will hardly be able to play a serious part in
life, and at the same time to be an imitator and imitate many other
parts as well; for even when two species of imitation are nearly allied,
the same persons cannot succeed in both, as, for example, the writers
of tragedy and comedy---did you not just now call them imitations?

Yes, I did; and you are right in thinking that the same persons can
not succeed in both. 

Any more than they can be rhapsodists and actors at once?

True. 

Neither are comic and tragic actors the same; yet all these things
are but imitations. 

They are so. 

And human nature, Adeimantus, appears to have been coined into yet
smaller pieces, and to be as incapable of imitating many things well,
as of performing well the actions of which the imitations are copies.

Quite true, he replied. 

If then we adhere to our original notion and bear in mind that our
guardians, setting aside every other business, are to dedicate themselves
wholly to the maintenance of freedom in the State, making this their
craft, and engaging in no work which does not bear on this end, they
ought not to practise or imitate anything else; if they imitate at
all, they should imitate from youth upward only those characters which
are suitable to their profession---the courageous, temperate, holy,
free, and the like; but they should not depict or be skilful at imitating
any kind of illiberality or baseness, lest from imitation they should
come to be what they imitate. Did you never observe how imitations,
beginning in early youth and continuing far into life, at length grow
into habits and become a second nature, affecting body, voice, and
mind? 

Yes, certainly, he said. 

Then, I said, we will not allow those for whom we profess a care and
of whom we say that they ought to be good men, to imitate a woman,
whether young or old, quarrelling with her husband, or striving and
vaunting against the gods in conceit of her happiness, or when she
is in affliction, or sorrow, or weeping; and certainly not one who
is in sickness, love, or labor. 

Very right, he said. 

Neither must they represent slaves, male or female, performing the
offices of slaves? 

They must not. 

And surely not bad men, whether cowards or any others, who do the
reverse of what we have just been prescribing, who scold or mock or
revile one another in drink or out of drink, or who in any other
manner sin against themselves and their neighbors in word or deed,
as the manner of such is. Neither should they be trained to imitate
the action or speech of men or women who are mad or bad; for madness,
like vice, is to be known but not to be practised or imitated.

Very true, he replied. 

Neither may they imitate smiths or other artificers, or oarsmen, or
boatswains, or the like? 

How can they, he said, when they are not allowed to apply their minds
to the callings of any of these? 

Nor may they imitate the neighing of horses, the bellowing of bulls,
the murmur of rivers and roll of the ocean, thunder, and all that
sort of thing? 

Nay, he said, if madness be forbidden, neither may they copy the behavior
of madmen. 

You mean, I said, if I understand you aright, that there is one sort
of narrative style which may be employed by a truly good man when
he has anything to say, and that another sort will be used by a man
of an opposite character and education. 

And which are these two sorts? he asked. 

Suppose, I answered, that a just and good man in the course of a narration
comes on some saying or action of another good man,---I should imagine
that he will like to personate him, and will not be ashamed of this
sort of imitation: he will be most ready to play the part of the good
man when he is acting firmly and wisely; in a less degree when he
is overtaken by illness or love or drink, or has met with any other
disaster. But when he comes to a character which is unworthy of him,
he will not make a study of that; he will disdain such a person, and
will assume his likeness, if at all, for a moment only when he is
performing some good action; at other times he will be ashamed to
play a part which he has never practised, nor will he like to fashion
and frame himself after the baser models; he feels the employment
of such an art, unless in jest, to be beneath him, and his mind revolts
at it. 

So I should expect, he replied. 

Then he will adopt a mode of narration such as we have illustrated
out of Homer, that is to say, his style will be both imitative and
narrative; but there will be very little of the former, and a great
deal of the latter. Do you agree? 

Certainly, he said; that is the model which such a speaker must necessarily
take. 

But there is another sort of character who will narrate anything,
and, the worse he is, the more unscrupulous he will be; nothing will
be too bad for him: and he will be ready to imitate anything, not
as a joke, but in right good earnest, and before a large company.
As I was just now saying, he will attempt to represent the roll of
thunder, the noise of wind and hall, or the creaking of wheels, and
pulleys, and the various sounds of flutes, pipes, trumpets, and all
sorts of instruments; he will bark like a dog, bleat like a sheep,
or crow like a cock; his entire art will consist in imitation of voice
and gesture, and there will be very little narration. 

That, he said, will be his mode of speaking. 

These, then, are the two kinds of style? 

Yes. 

And you would agree with me in saying that one of them is simple and
has but slight changes; and if the harmony and rhythm are also chosen
for their simplicity, the result is that the speaker, if he speaks
correctly, is always pretty much the same in style, and he will keep
within the limits of a single harmony (for the changes are not great),
and in like manner he will make use of nearly the same rhythm?

That is quite true, he said. 

Whereas the other requires all sorts of harmonies and all sorts of
rhythms, if the music and the style are to correspond, because the
style has all sorts of changes. 

That is also perfectly true, he replied. 

And do not the two styles, or the mixture of the two, comprehend all
poetry, and every form of expression in words? No one can say anything
except in one or other of them or in both together. 

They include all, he said. 

And shall we receive into our State all the three styles, or one only
of the two unmixed styles? or would you include the mixed?

I should prefer only to admit the pure imitator of virtue.

Yes, I said, Adeimantus; but the mixed style is also very charming:
and indeed the pantomimic, which is the opposite of the one chosen
by you, is the popular style with children and their attendants,
and with the world in general. 

I do not deny it. 

But I suppose you would argue that such a style is unsuitable to our
State, in which human nature is not twofold or manifold, for one man
plays one part only? 

Yes; quite unsuitable. 

And this is the reason why in our State, and in our State only, we
shall find a shoemaker to be a shoemaker and not a pilot also, and
a husbandman to be a husbandman and not a dicast also, and a soldier
a soldier and not a trader also, and the same throughout?

True, he said. 

And therefore when any one of these pantomimic gentlemen, who are
so clever that they can imitate anything, comes to us, and makes a
proposal to exhibit himself and his poetry, we will fall down and
worship him as a sweet and holy and wonderful being; but we must also
inform him that in our State such as he are not permitted to exist;
the law will not allow them. And so when we have anointed him with
myrrh, and set a garland of wool upon his head, we shall send him
away to another city. For we mean to employ for our souls' health
the rougher and severer poet or story-teller who will imitate the
style of the virtuous only, and will follow those models which we
prescribed at first when we began the education of our soldiers.

We certainly will, he said, if we have the power. 

Then now, my friend, I said, that part of music or literary education
which relates to the story or myth may be considered to be finished;
for the matter and manner have both been discussed. 

I think so too, he said. 

Next in order will follow melody and song. 

That is obvious. 

Every one can see already what we ought to say about them, if we are
to be consistent with ourselves. 

%Socrates - GLAUCON 

I fear, said Glaucon, laughing, that the word ``every one'' hardly
includes me, for I can not at the moment say what they should be; though
I may guess. 

At any rate you can tell that a song or ode has three parts---the
words, the melody, and the rhythm; that degree of knowledge I may
presuppose? 

Yes, he said; so much as that you may. 

And as for the words, there will surely be no difference between
words which are and which are not set to music; both will conform
to the same laws, and these have been already determined by us?

Yes. 

And the melody and rhythm will depend upon the words? 

Certainly. 

We were saying, when we spoke of the subject-matter, that we had no
need of lamentations and strains of sorrow? 

True. 

And which are the harmonies expressive of sorrow? You are musical,
and can tell me. 

The harmonies which you mean are the mixed or tenor Lydian, and the
full-toned or bass Lydian, and such like. 

These then, I said, must be banished; even to women who have a character
to maintain they are of no use, and much less to men.

Certainly.

In the next place, drunkenness and softness and indolence are utterly
unbecoming the character of our guardians. 

Utterly unbecoming. 

And which are the soft or drinking harmonies? 

The Ionian, he replied, and the Lydian; they are termed ``relaxed.''

Well, and are these of any military use? 

Quite the reverse, he replied; and if so the Dorian and the Phrygian
are the only ones which you have left. 

I answered: Of the harmonies I know nothing, but I want to have one
warlike, to sound the note or accent which a brave man utters in the
hour of danger and stern resolve, or when his cause is failing, and
he is going to wounds or death or is overtaken by some other evil,
and at every such crisis meets the blows of fortune with firm step
and a determination to endure; and another to be used by him in times
of peace and freedom of action, when there is no pressure of necessity,
and he is seeking to persuade God by prayer, or man by instruction
and admonition, or on the other hand, when he is expressing his willingness
to yield to persuasion or entreaty or admonition, and which represents
him when by prudent conduct he has attained his end, not carried away
by his success, but acting moderately and wisely under the circumstances,
and acquiescing in the event. These two harmonies I ask you to leave;
the strain of necessity and the strain of freedom, the strain of the
unfortunate and the strain of the fortunate, the strain of courage,
and the strain of temperance; these, I say, leave. 

And these, he replied, are the Dorian and Phrygian harmonies of which
I was just now speaking. 

Then, I said, if these and these only are to be used in our songs
and melodies, we shall not want multiplicity of notes or a panharmonic
scale? 

I suppose not. 

Then we shall not maintain the artificers of lyres with three corners
and complex scales, or the makers of any other many-stringed curiously-harmonised
instruments? 

Certainly not. 

But what do you say to flute-makers and flute-players? Would you admit
them into our State when you reflect that in this composite use of
harmony the flute is worse than all the stringed instruments put together;
even the panharmonic music is only an imitation of the flute?

Clearly not. 

There remain then only the lyre and the harp for use in the city,
and the shepherds may have a pipe in the country. 

That is surely the conclusion to be drawn from the argument.

The preferring of Apollo and his instruments to Marsyas and his instruments
is not at all strange, I said. 

Not at all, he replied. 

And so, by the dog of Egypt, we have been unconsciously purging the
State, which not long ago we termed luxurious. 

And we have done wisely, he replied. 

Then let us now finish the purgation, I said. Next in order to harmonies,
rhythms will naturally follow, and they should be subject to the same
rules, for we ought not to seek out complex systems of metre, or metres
of every kind, but rather to discover what rhythms are the expressions
of a courageous and harmonious life; and when we have found them,
we shall adapt the foot and the melody to words having a like spirit,
not the words to the foot and melody. To say what these rhythms are
will be your duty---you must teach me them, as you have already taught
me the harmonies. 

But, indeed, he replied, I can not tell you. I only know that there
are some three principles of rhythm out of which metrical systems
are framed, just as in sounds there are four notes out of which all
the harmonies are composed; that is an observation which I have made.
But of what sort of lives they are severally the imitations I am unable
to say. 

Then, I said, we must take Damon into our counsels; and he will tell
us what rhythms are expressive of meanness, or insolence, or fury,
or other unworthiness, and what are to be reserved for the expression
of opposite feelings. And I think that I have an indistinct recollection
of his mentioning a complex Cretic rhythm; also a dactylic or heroic,
and he arranged them in some manner which I do not quite understand,
making the rhythms equal in the rise and fall of the foot, long and
short alternating; and, unless I am mistaken, he spoke of an iambic
as well as of a trochaic rhythm, and assigned to them short and long
quantities. Also in some cases he appeared to praise or censure the
movement of the foot quite as much as the rhythm; or perhaps a combination
of the two; for I am not certain what he meant. These matters, however,
as I was saying, had better be referred to Damon himself, for the
analysis of the subject would be difficult, you know? 

Rather so, I should say. 

But there is no difficulty in seeing that grace or the absence of
grace is an effect of good or bad rhythm. 

None at all. 

And also that good and bad rhythm naturally assimilate to a good and
bad style; and that harmony and discord in like manner follow style;
for our principle is that rhythm and harmony are regulated by the
words, and not the words by them. 

Just so, he said, they should follow the words. 

And will not the words and the character of the style depend on the
temper of the soul? 

Yes. 

And everything else on the style? 

Yes. 

Then beauty of style and harmony and grace and good rhythm depend
on simplicity,---I mean the true simplicity of a rightly and nobly
ordered mind and character, not that other simplicity which is only
an euphemism for folly? 

Very true, he replied. 

And if our youth are to do their work in life, must they not make
these graces and harmonies their perpetual aim? 

They must. 

And surely the art of the painter and every other creative and constructive
art are full of them,---weaving, embroidery, architecture, and every
kind of manufacture; also nature, animal and vegetable,---in all of
them there is grace or the absence of grace. And ugliness and discord
and inharmonious motion are nearly allied to ill words and ill nature,
as grace and harmony are the twin sisters of goodness and virtue and
bear their likeness. 

That is quite true, he said. 

But shall our superintendence go no further, and are the poets only
to be required by us to express the image of the good in their works,
on pain, if they do anything else, of expulsion from our State? Or
is the same control to be extended to other artists, and are they
also to be prohibited from exhibiting the opposite forms of vice and
intemperance and meanness and indecency in sculpture and building
and the other creative arts; and is he who can not conform to this
rule of ours to be prevented from practising his art in our State,
lest the taste of our citizens be corrupted by him? We would not have
our guardians grow up amid images of moral deformity, as in some noxious
pasture, and there browse and feed upon many a baneful herb and flower
day by day, little by little, until they silently gather a festering
mass of corruption in their own soul. Let our artists rather be those
who are gifted to discern the true nature of the beautiful and graceful;
then will our youth dwell in a land of health, amid fair sights and
sounds, and receive the good in everything; and beauty, the effluence
of fair works, shall flow into the eye and ear, like a health-giving
breeze from a purer region, and insensibly draw the soul from earliest
years into likeness and sympathy with the beauty of reason.

There can be no nobler training than that, he replied. 

And therefore, I said, Glaucon, musical training is a more potent
instrument than any other, because rhythm and harmony find their way
into the inward places of the soul, on which they mightily fasten,
imparting grace, and making the soul of him who is rightly educated
graceful, or of him who is ill-educated ungraceful; and also because
he who has received this true education of the inner being will most
shrewdly perceive omissions or faults in art and nature, and with
a true taste, while he praises and rejoices over and receives into
his soul the good, and becomes noble and good, he will justly blame
and hate the bad, now in the days of his youth, even before he is
able to know the reason why; and when reason comes he will recognize
and salute the friend with whom his education has made him long familiar.

Yes, he said, I quite agree with you in thinking that our youth should
be trained in music and on the grounds which you mention.

Just as in learning to read, I said, we were satisfied when we knew
the letters of the alphabet, which are very few, in all their recurring
sizes and combinations; not slighting them as unimportant whether
they occupy a space large or small, but everywhere eager to make them
out; and not thinking ourselves perfect in the art of reading until
we recognize them wherever they are found: 

True---

Or, as we recognize the reflection of letters in the water, or in
a mirror, only when we know the letters themselves; the same art and
study giving us the knowledge of both: 

Exactly--- 

Even so, as I maintain, neither we nor our guardians, whom we have
to educate, can ever become musical until we and they know the essential
forms of temperance, courage, liberality, magnificence, and their
kindred, as well as the contrary forms, in all their combinations,
and can recognise them and their images wherever they are found,
not slighting them either in small things or great, but believing them
all to be within the sphere of one art and study. 

Most assuredly. 

And when a beautiful soul harmonizes with a beautiful form, and the
two are cast in one mould, that will be the fairest of sights to him
who has an eye to see it? 

The fairest indeed. 

And the fairest is also the loveliest? 

That may be assumed. 

And the man who has the spirit of harmony will be most in love with
the loveliest; but he will not love him who is of an inharmonious
soul? 

That is true, he replied, if the deficiency be in his soul; but if
there be any merely bodily defect in another he will be patient of
it, and will love all the same. 

I perceive, I said, that you have or have had experiences of this
sort, and I agree. But let me ask you another question: Has excess
of pleasure any affinity to temperance? 

How can that be? he replied; pleasure deprives a man of the use of
his faculties quite as much as pain. 

Or any affinity to virtue in general? 

None whatever. 

Any affinity to wantonness and intemperance? 

Yes, the greatest. 

And is there any greater or keener pleasure than that of sensual love?

No, nor a madder. 

Whereas true love is a love of beauty and order---temperate and harmonious?

Quite true, he said. 

Then no intemperance or madness should be allowed to approach true
love? 

Certainly not. 

Then mad or intemperate pleasure must never be allowed to come near
the lover and his beloved; neither of them can have any part in it
if their love is of the right sort? 

No, indeed, Socrates, it must never come near them. 

Then I suppose that in the city which we are founding you would make
a law to the effect that a friend should use no other familiarity
to his love than a father would use to his son, and then only for
a noble purpose, and he must first have the other's consent; and this
rule is to limit him in all his intercourse, and he is never to be
seen going further, or, if he exceeds, he is to be deemed guilty of
coarseness and bad taste. 

I quite agree, he said. 

Thus much of music, which makes a fair ending; for what should be
the end of music if not the love of beauty? 

I agree, he said. 

After music comes gymnastic, in which our youth are next to be trained.

Certainly. 

Gymnastic as well as music should begin in early years; the training
in it should be careful and should continue through life. Now my belief
is,---and this is a matter upon which I should like to have your opinion
in confirmation of my own, but my own belief is,---not that the good
body by any bodily excellence improves the soul, but, on the contrary,
that the good soul, by her own excellence, improves the body as far
as this may be possible. What do you say? 

Yes, I agree. 

Then, to the mind when adequately trained, we shall be right in handing
over the more particular care of the body; and in order to avoid prolixity
we will now only give the general outlines of the subject.

Very good. 

That they must abstain from intoxication has been already remarked
by us; for of all persons a guardian should be the last to get drunk
and not know where in the world he is. 

Yes, he said; that a guardian should require another guardian to take
care of him is ridiculous indeed. 

But next, what shall we say of their food; for the men are in training
for the great contest of all---are they not? 

Yes, he said. 

And will the habit of body of our ordinary athletes be suited to them?

Why not? 

I am afraid, I said, that a habit of body such as they have is but
a sleepy sort of thing, and rather perilous to health. Do you not
observe that these athletes sleep away their lives, and are liable
to most dangerous illnesses if they depart, in ever so slight a degree,
from their customary regimen? 

Yes, I do. 

Then, I said, a finer sort of training will be required for our warrior
athletes, who are to be like wakeful dogs, and to see and hear with
the utmost keenness; amid the many changes of water and also of food,
of summer heat and winter cold, which they will have to endure when
on a campaign, they must not be liable to break down in health.

That is my view. 

The really excellent gymnastic is twin sister of that simple music
which we were just now describing. 

How so? 

Why, I conceive that there is a gymnastic which, like our music, is
simple and good; and especially the military gymnastic. 

What do you mean? 

My meaning may be learned from Homer; he, you know, feeds his heroes
at their feasts, when they are campaigning, on soldiers' fare; they
have no fish, although they are on the shores of the Hellespont, and
they are not allowed boiled meats but only roast, which is the food
most convenient for soldiers, requiring only that they should light
a fire, and not involving the trouble of carrying about pots and pans.

True. 

And I can hardly be mistaken in saying that sweet sauces are nowhere
mentioned in Homer. In proscribing them, however, he is not singular;
all professional athletes are well aware that a man who is to be in
good condition should take nothing of the kind. 

Yes, he said; and knowing this, they are quite right in not taking
them. 

Then you would not approve of Syracusan dinners, and the refinements
of Sicilian cookery? 

I think not. 

Nor, if a man is to be in condition, would you allow him to have a
Corinthian girl as his fair friend? 

Certainly not. 

Neither would you approve of the delicacies, as they are thought,
of Athenian confectionery? 

Certainly not. 

All such feeding and living may be rightly compared by us to melody
and song composed in the panharmonic style, and in all the rhythms.
Exactly. 

There complexity engendered license, and here disease; whereas simplicity
in music was the parent of temperance in the soul; and simplicity
in gymnastic of health in the body. 

Most true, he said. 

But when intemperance and disease multiply in a State, halls of justice
and medicine are always being opened; and the arts of the doctor and
the lawyer give themselves airs, finding how keen is the interest
which not only the slaves but the freemen of a city take about them.

Of course. 

And yet what greater proof can there be of a bad and disgraceful state
of education than this, that not only artisans and the meaner sort
of people need the skill of first-rate physicians and judges, but
also those who would profess to have had a liberal education? Is it
not disgraceful, and a great sign of the want of good-breeding, that a
man should have to go abroad for his law and physic because he has
none of his own at home, and must therefore surrender himself into
the hands of other men whom he makes lords and judges over him?

Of all things, he said, the most disgraceful. 

Would you say ``most,'' I replied, when you consider that there is a
further stage of the evil in which a man is not only a life-long litigant,
passing all his days in the courts, either as plaintiff or defendant,
but is actually led by his bad taste to pride himself on his litigiousness;
he imagines that he is a master in dishonesty; able to take every
crooked turn, and wriggle into and out of every hole, bending like
a withy and getting out of the way of justice: and all for what?---in
order to gain small points not worth mentioning, he not knowing that
so to order his life as to be able to do without a napping judge is
a far higher and nobler sort of thing. Is not that still more disgraceful?

Yes, he said, that is still more disgraceful. 

Well, I said, and to require the help of medicine, not when a wound
has to be cured, or on occasion of an epidemic, but just because,
by indolence and a habit of life such as we have been describing,
men fill themselves with waters and winds, as if their bodies were
a marsh, compelling the ingenious sons of Asclepius to find more names
for diseases, such as flatulence and catarrh; is not this, too, a
disgrace? 

Yes, he said, they do certainly give very strange and new-fangled names
to diseases. 

Yes, I said, and I do not believe that there were any such diseases
in the days of Asclepius; and this I infer from the circumstance that
the hero Eurypylus, after he has been wounded in Homer, drinks a posset
of Pramnian wine well besprinkled with barley-meal and grated cheese,
which are certainly inflammatory, and yet the sons of Asclepius who
were at the Trojan war do not blame the damsel who gives him the drink,
or rebuke Patroclus, who is treating his case. 

Well, he said, that was surely an extraordinary drink to be given
to a person in his condition. 

Not so extraordinary, I replied, if you bear in mind that in former
days, as is commonly said, before the time of Herodicus, the guild
of Asclepius did not practise our present system of medicine, which
may be said to educate diseases. But Herodicus, being a trainer, and
himself of a sickly constitution, by a combination of training and
doctoring found out a way of torturing first and chiefly himself,
and secondly the rest of the world. 

How was that? he said. 

By the invention of lingering death; for he had a mortal disease which
he perpetually tended, and as recovery was out of the question, he
passed his entire life as a valetudinarian; he could do nothing but
attend upon himself, and he was in constant torment whenever he departed
in anything from his usual regimen, and so dying hard, by the help
of science he struggled on to old age. 

A rare reward of his skill! 

Yes, I said; a reward which a man might fairly expect who never understood
that, if Asclepius did not instruct his descendants in valetudinarian
arts, the omission arose, not from ignorance or inexperience of such
a branch of medicine, but because he knew that in all well-ordered
states every individual has an occupation to which he must attend,
and has therefore no leisure to spend in continually being ill. This
we remark in the case of the artisan, but, ludicrously enough, do
not apply the same rule to people of the richer sort. 

How do you mean? he said. 

I mean this: When a carpenter is ill he asks the physician for a rough
and ready cure; an emetic or a purge or a cautery or the knife,---these
are his remedies. And if some one prescribes for him a course of dietetics,
and tells him that he must swathe and swaddle his head, and all that
sort of thing, he replies at once that he has no time to be ill, and
that he sees no good in a life which is spent in nursing his disease
to the neglect of his customary employment; and therefore bidding
good-bye to this sort of physician, he resumes his ordinary habits,
and either gets well and lives and does his business, or, if his constitution
fails, he dies and has no more trouble. 

Yes, he said, and a man in his condition of life ought to use the
art of medicine thus far only. 

Has he not, I said, an occupation; and what profit would there be
in his life if he were deprived of his occupation? 

Quite true, he said. 

But with the rich man this is otherwise; of him we do not say that
he has any specially appointed work which he must perform, if he would
live. 

He is generally supposed to have nothing to do. 

Then you never heard of the saying of Phocylides, that as soon as
a man has a livelihood he should practise virtue? 

Nay, he said, I think that he had better begin somewhat sooner.

Let us not have a dispute with him about this, I said; but rather
ask ourselves: Is the practice of virtue obligatory on the rich man,
or can he live without it? And if obligatory on him, then let us raise
a further question, whether this dieting of disorders, which is an
impediment to the application of the mind in carpentering and the
mechanical arts, does not equally stand in the way of the sentiment
of Phocylides? 

Of that, he replied, there can be no doubt; such excessive care of
the body, when carried beyond the rules of gymnastic, is most inimical
to the practice of virtue. 

Yes, indeed, I replied, and equally incompatible with the management
of a house, an army, or an office of state; and, what is most important
of all, irreconcilable with any kind of study or thought or self-reflection
---there is a constant suspicion that headache and giddiness are to
be ascribed to philosophy, and hence all practising or making trial
of virtue in the higher sense is absolutely stopped; for a man is
always fancying that he is being made ill, and is in constant anxiety
about the state of his body. 

Yes, likely enough. 

And therefore our politic Asclepius may be supposed to have exhibited
the power of his art only to persons who, being generally of healthy
constitution and habits of life, had a definite ailment; such as these
he cured by purges and operations, and bade them live as usual, herein
consulting the interests of the State; but bodies which disease had
penetrated through and through he would not have attempted to cure
by gradual processes of evacuation and infusion: he did not want to
lengthen out good-for-nothing lives, or to have weak fathers begetting
weaker sons;---if a man was not able to live in the ordinary way he
had no business to cure him; for such a cure would have been of no
use either to himself, or to the State. 

Then, he said, you regard Asclepius as a statesman. 

Clearly; and his character is further illustrated by his sons. Note
that they were heroes in the days of old and practised the medicines
of which I am speaking at the siege of Troy: You will remember how,
when Pandarus wounded Menelaus, they 

\begin{quote}
``Sucked the blood out of the wound, and sprinkled soothing remedies,''
\end{quote}

but they never prescribed what the patient was afterwards to eat or
drink in the case of Menelaus, any more than in the case of Eurypylus;
the remedies, as they conceived, were enough to heal any man who before
he was wounded was healthy and regular in his habits; and even though
he did happen to drink a posset of Pramnian wine, he might get well
all the same. But they would have nothing to do with unhealthy and
intemperate subjects, whose lives were of no use either to themselves
or others; the art of medicine was not designed for their good, and
though they were as rich as Midas, the sons of Asclepius would have
declined to attend them. 

They were very acute persons, those sons of Asclepius. 

Naturally so, I replied. Nevertheless, the tragedians and Pindar disobeying
our behests, although they acknowledge that Asclepius was the son
of Apollo, say also that he was bribed into healing a rich man who
was at the point of death, and for this reason he was struck by lightning.
But we, in accordance with the principle already affirmed by us, will
not believe them when they tell us both;---if he was the son of a
god, we maintain that he was not avaricious; or, if he was avaricious,
he was not the son of a god. 

All that, Socrates, is excellent; but I should like to put a question
to you: Ought there not to be good physicians in a State, and are
not the best those who have treated the greatest number of constitutions
good and bad? and are not the best judges in like manner those who
are acquainted with all sorts of moral natures? 

Yes, I said, I too would have good judges and good physicians. But
do you know whom I think good? 

Will you tell me? 

I will, if I can. Let me however note that in the same question you
join two things which are not the same. 

How so? he asked. 

Why, I said, you join physicians and judges. Now the most skilful
physicians are those who, from their youth upwards, have combined
with the knowledge of their art the greatest experience of disease;
they had better not be robust in health, and should have had all manner
of diseases in their own persons. For the body, as I conceive, is
not the instrument with which they cure the body; in that case we
could not allow them ever to be or to have been sickly; but they cure
the body with the mind, and the mind which has become and is sick
can cure nothing. 

That is very true, he said. 

But with the judge it is otherwise; since he governs mind by mind;
he ought not therefore to have been trained among vicious minds, and
to have associated with them from youth upwards, and to have gone
through the whole calendar of crime, only in order that he may quickly
infer the crimes of others as he might their bodily diseases from
his own self-consciousness; the honorable mind which is to form a
healthy judgment should have had no experience or contamination of
evil habits when young. And this is the reason why in youth good men
often appear to be simple, and are easily practised upon by the dishonest,
because they have no examples of what evil is in their own souls.

Yes, he said, they are far too apt to be deceived. 

Therefore, I said, the judge should not be young; he should have learned
to know evil, not from his own soul, but from late and long observation
of the nature of evil in others: knowledge should be his guide, not
personal experience. 

Yes, he said, that is the ideal of a judge. 

Yes, I replied, and he will be a good man (which is my answer to your
question); for he is good who has a good soul. But the cunning and
suspicious nature of which we spoke,---he who has committed many crimes,
and fancies himself to be a master in wickedness, when he is amongst
his fellows, is wonderful in the precautions which he takes, because
he judges of them by himself: but when he gets into the company of
men of virtue, who have the experience of age, he appears to be a
fool again, owing to his unseasonable suspicions; he can not recognize
an honest man, because he has no pattern of honesty in himself; at
the same time, as the bad are more numerous than the good, and he
meets with them oftener, he thinks himself, and is by others thought
to be, rather wise than foolish. 

Most true, he said. 

Then the good and wise judge whom we are seeking is not this man,
but the other; for vice can not know virtue too, but a virtuous nature,
educated by time, will acquire a knowledge both of virtue and vice:
the virtuous, and not the vicious man has wisdom---in my opinion.

And in mine also. 

This is the sort of medicine, and this is the sort of law, which you will
sanction in your State. They will minister to better natures, giving
health both of soul and of body; but those who are diseased in their
bodies they will leave to die, and the corrupt and incurable souls
they will put an end to themselves. 

That is clearly the best thing both for the patients and for the State.

And thus our youth, having been educated only in that simple music
which, as we said, inspires temperance, will be reluctant to go to
law. 

Clearly. 

And the musician, who, keeping to the same track, is content to practise
the simple gymnastic, will have nothing to do with medicine unless
in some extreme case. 

That I quite believe. 

The very exercises and tolls which he undergoes are intended to stimulate
the spirited element of his nature, and not to increase his strength;
he will not, like common athletes, use exercise and regimen to develop
his muscles. 

Very right, he said. 

Neither are the two arts of music and gymnastic really designed, as
is often supposed, the one for the training of the soul, the other
for the training of the body. 

What then is the real object of them? 

I believe, I said, that the teachers of both have in view chiefly
the improvement of the soul. 

How can that be? he asked. 

Did you never observe, I said, the effect on the mind itself of exclusive
devotion to gymnastic, or the opposite effect of an exclusive devotion
to music? 

In what way shown? he said. 

The one producing a temper of hardness and ferocity, the other of
softness and effeminacy, I replied. 

Yes, he said, I am quite aware that the mere athlete becomes too much
of a savage, and that the mere musician is melted and softened beyond
what is good for him. 

Yet surely, I said, this ferocity only comes from spirit, which, if
rightly educated, would give courage, but, if too much intensified,
is liable to become hard and brutal. 

That I quite think. 

On the other hand the philosopher will have the quality of gentleness.
And this also, when too much indulged, will turn to softness, but,
if educated rightly, will be gentle and moderate. 

True. 

And in our opinion the guardians ought to have both these qualities?

Assuredly. 

And both should be in harmony? 

Beyond question. 

And the harmonious soul is both temperate and courageous?

Yes. 

And the inharmonious is cowardly and boorish? 

Very true. 

And, when a man allows music to play upon him and to pour into his
soul through the funnel of his ears those sweet and soft and melancholy
airs of which we were just now speaking, and his whole life is past
in warbling and the delights of song; in the first stage of the process
the passion or spirit which is in him is tempered like iron, and made
useful, instead of brittle and useless. But, if he carries on the
softening and soothing process, in the next stage he begins to melt
and waste, until he has wasted away his spirit and cut out the sinews
of his soul; and he becomes a feeble warrior. 

Very true. 

If the element of spirit is naturally weak in him the change is speedily
accomplished, but if he have a good deal, then the power of music
weakening the spirit renders him excitable;---on the least provocation
he flames up at once, and is speedily extinguished; instead of having
spirit he grows irritable and passionate and is quite impracticable.

Exactly. 

And so in gymnastics, if a man takes violent exercise and is a great
feeder, and the reverse of a great student of music and philosophy,
at first the high condition of his body fills him with pride and spirit,
and he becomes twice the man that he was. 

Certainly. 

And what happens? if he do nothing else, and holds no converse
with the Muses, does not even that intelligence which there may be
in him, having no taste of any sort of learning or inquiry or thought
or culture, grow feeble and dull and blind, his mind never waking
up or receiving nourishment, and his senses not being purged of their
mists? 

True, he said. 

And he ends by becoming a hater of philosophy, uncivilized, never
using the weapon of persuasion,---he is like a wild beast, all violence
and fierceness, and knows no other way of dealing; and he lives in
all ignorance and evil conditions, and has no sense of propriety and
grace. 

That is quite true, he said. 

And as there are two principles of human nature, one the spirited
and the other the philosophical, some God, as I should say, has given
mankind two arts answering to them (and only indirectly to the soul
and body), in order that these two principles (like the strings of
an instrument) may be relaxed or drawn tighter until they are duly
harmonised. 

That appears to be the intention. 

And he who mingles music with gymnastic in the fairest proportions,
and best attempers them to the soul, may be rightly called the true
musician and harmonist in a far higher sense than the tuner of the
strings. 

You are quite right, Socrates. 

And such a presiding genius will be always required in our State if
the government is to last. 

Yes, he will be absolutely necessary. 

Such, then, are our principles of nurture and education: Where would
be the use of going into further details about the dances of our citizens,
or about their hunting and coursing, their gymnastic and equestrian
contests? For these all follow the general principle, and having found
that, we shall have no difficulty in discovering them. 

I dare say that there will be no difficulty. 

Very good, I said; then what is the next question? Must we not ask
who are to be rulers and who subjects? 

Certainly. 

There can be no doubt that the elder must rule the younger.

Clearly. 

And that the best of these must rule. 

That is also clear. 

Now, are not the best husbandmen those who are most devoted to husbandry?

Yes. 

And as we are to have the best of guardians for our city, must they
not be those who have most the character of guardians? 

Yes. 

And to this end they ought to be wise and efficient, and to have a
special care of the State? 

True. 

And a man will be most likely to care about that which he loves?

To be sure. 

And he will be most likely to love that which he regards as having
the same interests with himself, and that of which the good or evil
fortune is supposed by him at any time most to affect his own?

Very true, he replied. 

Then there must be a selection. Let us note among the guardians those
who in their whole life show the greatest eagerness to do what is
for the good of their country, and the greatest repugnance to do what
is against her interests. 

Those are the right men. 

And they will have to be watched at every age, in order that we may
see whether they preserve their resolution, and never, under the influence
either of force or enchantment, forget or cast off their sense of
duty to the State. 

How cast off? he said. 

I will explain to you, I replied. A resolution may go out of a man's
mind either with his will or against his will; with his will when
he gets rid of a falsehood and learns better, against his will whenever
he is deprived of a truth. 

I understand, he said, the willing loss of a resolution; the meaning
of the unwilling I have yet to learn. 

Why, I said, do you not see that men are unwillingly deprived of good,
and willingly of evil? Is not to have lost the truth an evil, and
to possess the truth a good? and you would agree that to conceive
things as they are is to possess the truth? 

Yes, he replied; I agree with you in thinking that mankind are deprived
of truth against their will. 

And is not this involuntary deprivation caused either by theft, or
force, or enchantment? 

Still, he replied, I do not understand you. 

I fear that I must have been talking darkly, like the tragedians.
I only mean that some men are changed by persuasion and that others
forget; argument steals away the hearts of one class, and time of
the other; and this I call theft. Now you understand me?

Yes. 

Those again who are forced, are those whom the violence of some pain
or grief compels to change their opinion. 

I understand, he said, and you are quite right. 

And you would also acknowledge that the enchanted are those who change
their minds either under the softer influence of pleasure, or the
sterner influence of fear? 

Yes, he said; everything that deceives may be said to enchant.

Therefore, as I was just now saying, we must inquire who are the best
guardians of their own conviction that what they think the interest
of the State is to be the rule of their lives. We must watch them
from their youth upwards, and make them perform actions in which they
are most likely to forget or to be deceived, and he who remembers
and is not deceived is to be selected, and he who fails in the trial
is to be rejected. That will be the way? 

Yes. 

And there should also be toils and pains and conflicts prescribed
for them, in which they will be made to give further proof of the
same qualities. 

Very right, he replied. 

And then, I said, we must try them with enchantments---that is the
sort of test--and see what will be their behavior; like those who
take colts amid noise and tumult to see if they are of a timid nature,
so must we take our youth amid terrors of some kind, and again pass
them into pleasures, and prove them more thoroughly than gold is proved
in the furnace, that we may discover whether they are armed against
all enchantments, and of a noble bearing always, good guardians of
themselves and of the music which they have learned, and retaining
under all circumstances a rhythmical and harmonious nature, such as
will be most serviceable to the individual and to the State. And he
who at every age, as boy and youth and in mature life, has come out
of the trial victorious and pure, shall be appointed a ruler and guardian
of the State; he shall be honored in life and death, and shall receive
sepulture and other memorials of honor, the greatest that we have
to give. But him who fails, we must reject. I am inclined to think
that this is the sort of way in which our rulers and guardians should
be chosen and appointed. I speak generally, and not with any pretension
to exactness. 

And, speaking generally, I agree with you, he said. 

And perhaps the word ``guardian'' in the fullest sense ought to be applied
to this higher class only who preserve us against foreign enemies
and maintain peace among our citizens at home, that the one may not
have the will, or the others the power, to harm us. The young men
whom we before called guardians may be more properly designated auxiliaries
and supporters of the principles of the rulers. 

I agree with you, he said. 

How then may we devise one of those needful falsehoods of which we
lately spoke---just one royal lie which may deceive the rulers, if
that be possible, and at any rate the rest of the city? 

What sort of lie? he said. 

Nothing new, I replied; only an old Phoenician tale of what has often
occurred before now in other places, (as the poets say, and have made
the world believe,) though not in our time, and I do not know whether
such an event could ever happen again, or could now even be made probable,
if it did. 

How your words seem to hesitate on your lips! 

You will not wonder, I replied, at my hesitation when you have heard.

Speak, he said, and fear not. 

Well then, I will speak, although I really know not how to look you
in the face, or in what words to utter the audacious fiction, which
I propose to communicate gradually, first to the rulers, then to the
soldiers, and lastly to the people. They are to be told that their
youth was a dream, and the education and training which they received
from us, an appearance only; in reality during all that time they
were being formed and fed in the womb of the earth, where they themselves
and their arms and appurtenances were manufactured; when they were
completed, the earth, their mother, sent them up; and so, their country
being their mother and also their nurse, they are bound to advise
for her good, and to defend her against attacks, and her citizens
they are to regard as children of the earth and their own brothers.

You had good reason, he said, to be ashamed of the lie which you were
going to tell. 

True, I replied, but there is more coming; I have only told you half.
Citizens, we shall say to them in our tale, you are brothers, yet
God has framed you differently. Some of you have the power of command,
and in the composition of these he has mingled gold, wherefore also
they have the greatest honor; others he has made of silver, to be
auxiliaries; others again who are to be husbandmen and craftsmen he
has composed of brass and iron; and the species will generally be
preserved in the children. But as all are of the same original stock,
a golden parent will sometimes have a silver son, or a silver parent
a golden son. And God proclaims as a first principle to the rulers,
and above all else, that there is nothing which they should so anxiously
guard, or of which they are to be such good guardians, as of the purity
of the race. They should observe what elements mingle in their offspring;
for if the son of a golden or silver parent has an admixture
of brass and iron, then nature orders a transportation of ranks and
the eye of the ruler must not be pitiful towards the child because
he has to descend in the scale and become a husbandman or artisan,
just as there may be sons of artisans who having an admixture of gold
or silver in them are raised to honor, and become guardians or auxiliaries.
For an oracle says that when a man of brass or iron guards the State,
it will be destroyed. Such is the tale; is there any possibility of
making our citizens believe in it? 

Not in the present generation, he replied; there is no way of accomplishing
this; but their sons may be made to believe in the tale, and their
sons' sons, and posterity after them. 

I see the difficulty, I replied; yet the fostering of such a belief
will make them care more for the city and for one another. Enough,
however, of the fiction, which may now fly abroad upon the wings of
rumor, while we arm our earth-born heroes, and lead them forth under
the command of their rulers. Let them look round and select a spot
whence they can best suppress insurrection, if any prove refractory
within, and also defend themselves against enemies, who like wolves
may come down on the fold from without; there let them encamp, and
when they have encamped, let them sacrifice to the proper Gods and
prepare their dwellings. 

Just so, he said. 

And their dwellings must be such as will shield them against the cold
of winter and the heat of summer. 

I suppose that you mean houses, he replied. 

Yes, I said; but they must be the houses of soldiers, and not of shop-keepers.

What is the difference? he said. 

That I will endeavour to explain, I replied. To keep watchdogs, who,
from want of discipline or hunger, or some evil habit or other,
would turn upon the sheep and worry them, and behave not like dogs
but wolves, would be a foul and monstrous thing in a shepherd?

Truly monstrous, he said. 

And therefore every care must be taken that our auxiliaries, being
stronger than our citizens, may not grow to be too much for them and
become savage tyrants instead of friends and allies? 

Yes, great care should be taken. 

And would not a really good education furnish the best safeguard?

But they are well-educated already, he replied. 

I can not be so confident, my dear Glaucon, I said; I am much more
certain that they ought to be, and that true education, whatever that may
be, will have the greatest tendency to civilize and humanize them
in their relations to one another, and to those who are under their
protection. 

Very true, he replied. 

And not only their education, but their habitations, and all that
belongs to them, should be such as will neither impair their virtue
as guardians, nor tempt them to prey upon the other citizens. Any
man of sense must acknowledge that. 

He must. 

Then let us consider what will be their way of life, if they are to
realize our idea of them. In the first place, none of them should
have any property of his own beyond what is absolutely necessary;
neither should they have a private house or store closed against any
one who has a mind to enter; their provisions should be only such
as are required by trained warriors, who are men of temperance and
courage; they should agree to receive from the citizens a fixed rate
of pay, enough to meet the expenses of the year and no more; and they
will go and live together like soldiers in a camp. Gold and silver
we will tell them that they have from God; the diviner metal is within
them, and they have therefore no need of the dross which is current
among them, and ought not to pollute the divine by any such earthly
admixture; for that commoner metal has been the source of many unholy
deeds, but their own is undefiled. And they alone of all the citizens
may not touch or handle silver or gold, or be under the same roof
with them, or wear them, or drink from them. And this will be their
salvation, and they will be the saviors of the State. But should
they ever acquire homes or lands or moneys of their own, they will
become housekeepers and husbandmen instead of guardians, enemies and
tyrants instead of allies of the other citizens; hating and being
hated, plotting and being plotted against, they will pass their whole
life in much greater terror of internal than of external enemies,
and the hour of ruin, both to themselves and to the rest of the State,
will be at hand. For all which reasons may we not say that thus shall
our State be ordered, and that these shall be the regulations appointed
by us for our guardians concerning their houses and all other matters?

Yes, said Glaucon. 

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